


Promises and Poetry

by Avelera



Series: After Uprising [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, POV Hermann Gottlieb, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:10:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17875766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: Promises and poetry, these are lies, but sometimes they allow one to fumble towards the truth.Newt's recovery continues and Hermann makes an offer for what comes after.





	Promises and Poetry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bare_bear](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bare_bear/gifts).



> Bare_bear prompted a story with the phrase, "I’m not leaving, so don’t even ask.”
> 
> This work is part of a loose series of Newmann Tumblr prompts all taking place in the same post-Uprising timeline. I'm leaving them as individual works because I may later to decided to jump around in the timeline, as I did with this work (which was written third but takes place second). I hope you enjoy!

Newt sat hunched over on the bed in his cell, panting. Sweat soaked through his shirt and his face was haggard with exhaustion, dark circles making his eyes cavernous. When he caught sight of Hermann, his lips parted but Hermann was already prepared, and waved dismissively.

“I’m not leaving, so don’t even ask.”

“It’s four in the morning,” Newt croaked. There was a digital clock blinking military time in bright orange on the wall across from his cell. A comfort, perhaps, or a torture of its own as the weeks of Newton's forced captivity ticked by. Newt rubbed his hands over his face, scraping some of the sweat on his brow back into his hair so it stood wild and on end. He was a picture of exhausted chaos contained in a glass-walled cell. “You should get some sleep.”

“I find I don’t sleep very well these days,” Hermann said without glancing up from his book. He turned the page, more for effect as he was hardly reading closely, had not been since the tension in Newton’s body began to ease and the glassy-far away expression of strained anguish to refocus. He’d read the book a dozen times before and could have practically recited it from memory. It was on a subject he’d once found repulsive, but nowadays he found the author’s voice and narration-style soothing. 

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Newt rasped. When Hermann glanced over, there was a faint quirk to Newt's lips that took away any sting from the declaration. “I’m telling you, man, I don’t need a babysitter. There’s nothing you can do anyway about the, uh, the…” 

“Episodes,” Hermann supplied, as if they were speaking of some mundane, if tragic, ailment like a brain tumor or epilepsy. These days, Newton had _episodes_ , when the Precursors in his brain made their vile, last-ditch efforts to regain control of their host. They could not just let the man rest, now that he was useless to them as a vessel with his capture and grew stronger in resisting them by the day. Petty malice was not a characteristic Hermann had expected when he first learned of the incalculably advanced species that had directed the Kaiju to invade their world. 

“How long was this one?”

Hermann grimaced. “Twelve hours.”

“Not too bad, then,” Newt drawled in an exhausted whisper. Impossible to tell if he was sarcastic or sincere. He'd had shorter episodes. He'd had longer ones. Before the twelve hours Newt had just spent frozen in a silent battle, his mouth twisted and head thrown back as his body lay paralyzed, fighting them off, he’d had a full thirty-six hours of freedom and lucidity, one of the longest stretches yet. Thirty-six hours in which they'd been able to talk freely and Newton had been able to take some much-needed rest, uninterrupted. 

Then the Precursors had come roaring back, as if the long stretch had only been a pause while they gathered the strength for another assault.  But it was progress, unarguably so even if it wasn't always linear. At first, Newton’s moments of freedom in his own body had been limited to milliseconds. Messages blinked out in Morse code had become a squeaked out _yes_ to designate Hermann as his trusted proxy for all decisions related to his care. Later, a finger twitched in a thumbs up or down to answer basic questions about his status, while his whole body shook as if the force of the struggle within him would tear him apart to even do that much. But those moments of control had lengthened, minute by minute, day by day. Until it was possible to have a whole conversation, to even spend time reminiscing uninterrupted for hours before Newt's eyes would roll back and his muscles seize. “You could have at least grabbed a nap. Or a shower. You’re looking a little ripe over there, pal.”

Hermann snorted. His shirt was rumpled and there were undoubtedly stains on his cuffs from juggling takeaway food in his lap. “Rich, coming from the man who looks like a _r_ at forcibly drowned in its own sweat.” 

“But a rat wearing Armani,” Newt pointed out. 

“From last season,” Hermann scoffed.

“Psh, like you’d know," Newt said, rolling his eyes. It had been easier, in the end, to fetch some of Newton’s own clothes from his flat, where they’d discovered the _monstrosity_ floating in a tank and promptly—and with great prejudice—destroyed it. But he’d seen the flicker of consternation, of fear, in Newt's eyes at the sight of those silk shirts and tailored trousers, before the man had shrugged and muttered something about _beggars_ and _choosers_. The first thing Hermann would do once Newton was out would be taking him shopping for new clothes, for  _whatever_ he wanted. 

...Once Newton was out. 

God, they still hadn’t talked about what would happen then, if Newton would even be allowed total freedom again. If Hermann would be _allowed_ to take Newton in at all or if Newton would _want_ to be taken in by Hermann. House arrest under 24/7 scrutiny on a PPDC base had been one of the more generous options floated with regards to Newt, but even that would be preferable to this cell. To staking out in a uncomfortable steel chair to keep Newton company, living each day as… whatever they were to each other now. Colleagues? Friends? Both terms felt inadequate compared to the all-consuming ache in Hermann's chest like a black hole at the thought of Newton spending even a minute alone in this awful place, much less the paralyzing agony of thinking about what Newton had gone through for the past decade.

Hermann didn’t dare ask how Newton saw _him._ It wasn’t his place, he told himself. It was too soon. He was content to simply be there, to be the one person who sat with Newton through the episodes, and the night terrors, and the days when the Precursors spat and cursed from his lips as if Newton were possessed by a spirit of the damned. 

“So twelve hours, huh? Hope that’s a good book you’ve got there.” Newt’s fingers twisted together in his lap, belying the hollow levity of his tone. 

“I’m rather fond of it,” Hermann said and flashed the cover.  Kaiju Morphology - A Summary of Findings by Dr. Newton Geiszler, published in 2015 based on the most preliminary dissections of Trespasser, Hundun, and Kaiceph. He held in his hand a rare original copy, signed. A gift. The book had received a commemorative re-release in 2026, at the peak of public interest in the team that had saved the world, but Hermann always preferred the original, its pages carrying the musty scent of better times.

“Oh Christ, that old thing?” Newt groaned. “How can you even _read_ that? It’s wrong, Hermann, just… so wrong, about _everything_. I was still trying to figure out what the heck kind of evolution could lead to that kind of biological diversity, just fuckin’ _lightyears_ from putting two and two together because, _duh_ , _clones_.” 

Newt shook his head as he laughed to himself, but Hermann’s head jerked up as the sound cut off suddenly and saw Newton wincing in pain. Hermann began to scramble to his feet as Newt pressed a hand to his forehead, but then waved Hermann back with the other. Just a flash. Random memories that made the ghost Drift connection to the Precursors flare to life.

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Newt muttered. “I think they’re still beat from the last tussle. It's gonna be a bit before they try again.”

“And you will beat them again. You’ve got this, Newton,” Hermann said, and forced his tone to levity. “Your brain is a bag of cats. If anyone’s mind is keen and frankly insane enough to make itself inhospitable to alien life, it would be yours.”

“Fascist life, not alien life,” Newt said, still rubbing his forehead as if to rub out a migraine, but offering a wavering grin of his own. “If they were, I dunno, like a Trill or something I’d be all over that. But seriously, why the fuck are you reading my book, man? You know it, I mean, you’ve been in my _brain_ you could probably re-write the damn thing blindfolded the way I can your damn college thesis.”

Hermann shrugged in discomfort. There was no way an honest answer wouldn’t be too personal, too revealing. He'd always abhorred public displays of affection, or been taught that he should. But then, they were alone except for the ever-watchful security cameras and he felt he owed Newton honesty when the man had so little else left to him. “I missed your voice.”

“Oof, you’ve got terrible taste, bud. My _voice?_ All this prime real estate before you and you missed my _voice?_ ” Newt said, gesturing to himself in all his bedraggled glory. His voice in question went high-pitched and strained.

Hermann huffed and rolled his eyes, hoping that disguised the sudden flush of heat in his cheeks. That was far too close. “Not your literal  _voice,_ you nitwit!" he lied. "Your authorial voice. At least on paper you’re capable of stringing a coherent sentence without rambling off on five different inane tangents. No wonder you were able to fool me so thoroughly in your letters. To think I ever…”

Hermann stopped himself. He stopped because it was perilously close to the words he’d locked up inside himself since that first terrified moment when he felt a tell-tale flicker of warmth in his chest at Newton’s letters and realized what it meant, realized his heart had betrayed him and doomed the careful friendship they'd built across the Atlantic.

Even worse, the sentiment wasn’t past tense, not anymore, if it ever had been even briefly in the years since. _To think I ever fell in love with you._ For the game to persist he would have to say those words with the same mocking, dismissive tone of all their fights, and it would not be true. 

He didn’t know what they were now.  He didn’t dare presume.  He only knew what he felt and how wildly inappropriate it was to feel that way, how poorly timed. 

It seemed everything between them was poorly timed.

When he looked up, Newton’s eyes were sad. “Yeah, to think you ever wrote back. What a joke and a half that was, huh? And now we’ve got,” he gestured at the bullet-proof glass wall between them then looked down, shaking his head ruefully, “this and it’s the letters all over again, huh? Or that line down the lab. Or _them_. The only times we can talk to each other without screaming is when there’s something in the way. Fuck, what are we gonna do, Herms? What the fuck is wrong with us?”

_Nothing. Everything,_ Hermann wanted to say. Instead he blurted out, “Come live with me.” 

Newt went still and looked up from his hands. “What?” 

Hermann felt as if his entire body had gone cold. He squared his shaking chin, ignoring the tremors that raced through his body, and said in a stronger tone, “Come live with me. Once you’re released. No more distance. No more lines. Let’s put an end to the whole wretched pattern and prove it for the silly superstition that it is.”

Newt’s lips parted and morphed into a bewildered grin that quickly fell away into pure puzzlement. “You… want to be roommates? With _me?_ ”

 _No! I want to be yours, I want you to be_ mine _!_   _I want you to be where you belong, where you’ve always belonged: beside me. I in your mind and you in mine. Together._

Hermann cleared his throat. “If you must put it in such gauche terms. Yes, I’d like you somewhere I can keep an eye on you. It seems the world has a habit of almost ending when I don’t.” He offered a faint, undoubtedly crooked smile to soften his words, and knew he was terrible at words of comfort. The world _had_ almost ended. It did not take a stretch to think of Newton as responsible for it or for Newt to think _himself_ responsible. Some would think Hermann mad that he didn’t, couldn’t. He knew the man too well. Perhaps better than he knew himself these days.

“You're serious? You...Sure. Sure, why not? I’m basically homeless after they release me,” Newt said. He stood, and swiped the back of his sleeve over his nose in a move that looked suspiciously like a sniffle, quickly hidden. “Uh, they _are_ going to release me at some point, right?”

“Your episodes have been getting shorter,” Hermann said earnestly, relieved to be back on the topic of the factual instead of the vague _something_ that clawed its way up his chest and begged him to tell Newton in words what he'd only been able to express before by desperately dragging the man against his chest, by sitting with him in his cell for hours and days at a time. “Back of the envelope calculation? It could be a matter of weeks, a month or two at most on this trajectory before that time becomes negligible. As for the _conditions_ of your release,” he puffed out a sigh, “that grows more complicated, but it’s where I can offer both sides the advantage. After all, I do live here on the PPDC base, where you could have as near as possible to a normal civilian life until the more complicated legal considerations are concluded. I’ve already begun the paperwork, though I’d need your signature as well, as I’ve only just recently realized the extent of…”

“Hermann,” Newt interrupted. “Breathe.”

“I was merely _explaining…_ ” Hermann huffed.

“I get it.” Newt’s eyes were soft. “I do. I, I’m just, uh… God. Fuck. I wish I could just... Do you, uh, want to shake on it?” Newt scrubbed a hand back through his hair. He nodded to the flap in the glass at eye level that could only be opened from Hermann’s side.   It should be safe. Well, in theory, the Precursors could seize control, crush Hermann's hand or drag him against the glass until he was bloody, but it wouldn’t be much before the guards outside broke in after.

Hermann nodded before his nerve could fail him, and inched over to the glass, then unhooked the mechanism carefully. It was an awkward affair as they insinuated their hands at shoulder-height. Newt’s hand was warm and damp from the sweat of the earlier seizures. It would have been unpleasant, but Hermann clutched Newt's hand like a lifeline, and felt Newt seize his in return. 

They stood there, frozen, it seemed neither willing to let go. The touch was like electricity crackling through Hermann’s spine. Like the embrace after the fight in the elevator, only this time it truly was Newton. So little contact since. He felt starved for it. He didn’t want to let go. Newton didn’t seem ready to let go either as they stared into one another's eyes.

“So, we’ve got a deal?” Newt’s voice cracked. Newt moved as if to pull away.

Hermann didn’t want to let him go.

“Oh, blast it,” Hermann muttered, and reached through with his other hand, his shoulder twisting to make space. Newt’s eyes, reddened and shockingly green, widened a moment before Hermann made contact, as Hermann’s palm caressed his cheek.

The stubble scratched the palm of his hand and God, what was he _doing_? It made that frantic hug look positively casual by comparison, but even this was not enough to soothe the welling _ache_  of desperation in his chest. He wanted more, but a kiss was simply out of the question, even as his heart jolted at the thought and suddenly it was all he could think of, so powerfully that it _must_ show on his face, in the way he licked his cracked and dry lips, dehydrated from too long spent waiting by Newton’s cell. Impossible, unthinkable, but God, he  _wanted_. 

“Just a little longer, Newton,” Hermann whispered. “You only need to be strong a little longer, and then… and then we can go home. And until then I’m not going anywhere. I will bolt myself to this chair if necessary to keep that promise to you.”

“Ok,” Newt said. No quip, no retort. His eyes were wide. He pressed his cheek against Hermann’s hand, perhaps by accident. Perhaps not. “Ok. Then… then we can go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> The next story in this series follows chronologically after this one. I hope you enjoyed! If so, **please** consider leaving a comment!


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